Material handling systems enable businesses that maintain an inventory of stored products to distribute products from the inventory based on customer orders. Automated distribution of stored products requires product verification in order to avoid distribution of the wrong product, or failure to distribute a product at all. In some industries, such as pharmaceutical distribution and the like, individual product labeling may also be required prior to distribution. The stored product inventory may include products of many types, sizes and shapes which may be maintained in storage at a warehouse facility, or at a retail outlet or other location. Pharmacies, for example, such as high volume mail order/central-fill, specialty, and acute and long-term care facility-based pharmacies, dispense a wide variety of stored products from inventory to large numbers of patients. The pharmaceutical products are stored at an inventory location, where a pharmacist or technician individually selects products from the inventory for dispensing. Pharmaceutical product dispensing includes labeling the selected product with the patient's information and dosing instructions or usage directions, as well as verifying the accuracy of the labeled product.
The prior art describes various attempts to automate the above-described process by providing automated systems for pulling numerous products from inventory and then transporting the products away from the inventory for dispensing. Some of the prior art automated systems rely on elaborate mechanisms to pull the product from inventory. The automated systems often utilize a vehicle on a conveyor to carry the mechanism, along with the product, away from the inventory for labeling. An example of a conveyor frequently used is an endless conveyor. The vehicles on an endless conveyor move in direct relation to the other vehicles. That is, the vehicles do not have independent coordinated movement. Therefore, any given vehicle is dependent upon the movement of the conveyor as well as the other vehicles when it pulls products from the inventory. This dependent movement inhibits the ability of the system to pull different products from different inventory locations and especially limits the ability to simultaneously pull products from more than one inventory location. This dependent movement also decreases efficiency and increases the amount of space necessary for operation of the system.
The automated systems in the prior art also add unnecessary steps and machinery between the steps of obtaining the product and labeling it. In particular, after delivering the product to the conveyor, the conveyor transports the product toward a labeler which must orient the product using sensors to ensure that the label is applied correctly. In other words, previous automated systems obtain and transport the product without regard to an orientation needed to correctly apply the label, thereby necessitating an extra step in the process to reorient the product before application of a label.
Prior art systems select only identically shaped products for transport to a labeler. Product sensors at the labeler station are designed to handle and verify only products of the selected shape. Separate labeling and verification stations equipped with shape-specific equipment must therefore be provided for flat and round or irregularly shaped products.
Accordingly, there exists a need for an improved inventory product distribution, verification and labeling system that uses independent, coordinated carriers or dependent carriers for efficient movement in less space, that can maintain the products in a preselected orientation so as to enable labeling of the products without the need for reorientation, and that can select, transport, label and verify the products without regard to shape. This disclosure addresses this need in the art as well as other needs, which will become apparent from the disclosure.